Pepper / INK /

Keeping the ink

He had gone into the desert with a name. When he came out he called himself simply Javved, "the one who lived." It wasn’t uncommon for practitioners to change names, and he hadn’t used the name of Emmett in over a hundred years, not since his brother, the Golden Child of the family had left him to die alone in the desert.

He no longer remembered his mortal name. And he doubted his brother did either. It hadn’t been spoken by anyone in a hundred years. At least, not within his hearing.

He wasn’t sure if the man who had been his brother, Daniel Emmet, the accursed Inkwalker, was lucky or if there was something protecting him because he had missed killing Daniel’s Keeper in Cold Iron twice.

He looked down at his ink, sighing. It was fading again. And for a single moment, fear and terror overwhelmed him at the thought of what that could mean. His Ink would kill him.

With the Taskforce, it had been harder to go unnoticed and he had needed a scapegoat. Now he had one. All it had taken was a good spell and a few herbs in the Chief’s tea and he had believed the story. The term for police that the local magic users still used was a mouthful, but they preferred it. They were, "alttarus almabuta Hukukun Memuru." Or, in the mortal tongue, "Cog-bound officers of the law"

Or, more commonly, alttarus almabuta, "The cog-bound" even though the city was changing, something else orchestrated by him. He didn’t just want to kill his once-brother, he wanted to destroy everything the Inkwalker Emmett was supposed to protect.

Normally, when his ink began to fade Javved would find fresh kills and use their blood to set his ink, but even that was beginning to fade. He would have to kill, and it would have to be soon, before the spell wore off.

Many would call him crazy, ask if he was touched with the Shadow Plague, but he wasn’t, at least he didn’t think he was, he was driven, driven with a righteous cause, to kill his brother and take back the ink his brother had stolen from him; the ink that had been promised him, that would bond with him.

He had lit on the idea of the bounty because the taskforce refused to work with him. So he figured he would make the people work for him instead.

He exited his room, into the main hall, only to find two people waiting for him in the front room. They were elderly and he plastered a smile on his face so as not to frighten them. The woman gasped, the man just sat staring ahead. The man muttered failed incantations to himself, his magic long since spent. There was no hint of anything in his eyes. The fever brought on by the plague had taken not only his magic, but also his mind.

"What do you want?" He didn’t try to be cross, but he hated seeing people like this. People were always asking him for what he could not do. Things that he didn’t have the power to change, even as a Necromancer.

"Cure him, please?" The elderly woman begged. She was his wife, and the years had not been kind to either of them.

Javved put a hand to the man’s chin and made him look at him. Nothing changed, the man couldn’t see him, locked forever in his own world, blind and mostly senile. "My wife says that you will help me"

It was said like a child would say it, with hope. The curt "I can’t help you" died on his lips. These two might yet be his salvation.

"I don’t know that I can bring him back all the way, but I can free him of the madness. But it is very powerful magic." He said quickly. "Place this," He pulled a sigil of the moon from his cloak with a flourish. "In the window tonight." He handed her a bag. "Then, brew yourselves a tea made from these leaves, make sure that you both drink your entire cup." He said sternly. "And then, when the magic has set, I will come in and complete the spell. It may cause some discomfort so I prefer to do it at night when the magic is strongest, and you can sleep through the worst of it."

"Thank you, Honored Brother." She said with a kindly smile as she pinched her husband gently on the arm. "C’mon Kassib, let’s go."

"I want to see the Magician." Kassib said,

"We’ve seen the Magician." His wife said as she steered him to the door.

;>;;>;;>;;

Next Chapter: Keeping the Ink (Daniel)